


Spectre at the Feast

by aderyn, aderyn meta (aderyn)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Reflection, Episode: s03e02 The Sign of Three, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Guardians - Freeform, Meta, Murder, Redbeard - Freeform, Reflection, Weddings, love and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 10:25:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn%20meta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Murder enters in red.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spectre at the Feast

**Spectre at the Feast: "The Sign of Three", "His Last Vow", and the Bloody Guardian**

 

This is a fairy tale.

This is a dream.

It looks like one, candy-coloured hotbed of erotics, celebration, wedding feast done up in shades of jealousy and joy, the yellow and bluebird of the walls.

Murder enters in red.

“Let’s play murder,” Sherlock says.

Look at all the slayers and slain: John, injured soldier, killer of killer cabbies, flanked by the two guardians who love him best. Mary orphaned and reborn, re-named, secretly bloody. Sherlock, window-dressed suicide, best man in battle dress ( _into battle_ , not naked as scarlet-tipped Irene but girded), like the guardsman saved ( _in so many ways_ ) by John Watson, wounded not by a gut-piercing blade in uniform but an entirely invisible barb to the heart.

Marriage is death. War. Loss. Heartbreak.

Love.

*****

A feast and later a bullet, two--one scalpel and one killshot.

“I believe,” Sherlock says, “I’m bleeding internally,” of all things—mayfly and ghost and invisible man—the truest. Sherlock the dragonslayer who isn’t, pirate who’s really a faithful setter, red protector who bucks time and mind, barks us back from oblivion.

"You may need to re-start my heart," Sherlock says.

An invitation. A telegram.

Seats at the table for doctor, detective, assassin, friend, maid, husband, wife, child, puzzle-solver, dancer, elephant, queen, king, madonna, client, spectre--

This is a fairy tale.

This is a dream.

Death sent regrets.

Major Sholto, old guard, wore his blues.


End file.
